RPG News - Piracy & PC Viability

As consoles become more like PCs in terms of components, why couldn't PCs take advantage of the OS that are used on consoles?

The Xbox 360 uses a version of Windows 2000, though with a much smaller footprint than the full version because it doesn't need to do anything other than gaming. The console has only 512 megs of RAM and two 3.2 ghz processing cores.

I can now duel boot my PC with Windows and Linux, why couldn't we have the general purpose OS and a specific gaming one, without having 30+ processes running in the background that I don't need.

Would this really be so bad? My computer components are generally better made than those found in the 360 and if something breaks, I can swap out rather than deal with an integrated mess. As it is I emulate Playstation games on my PC and prefer to play them on my PC than on the console. Gaming OS would have to be tailored to the general specs of the PC but we already do that with Linux distros.

Originally Posted by JemyM
The primary reason PC is a lesser gaming platform today, is:
1. Microsoft. Their push on the XBox platform instead of their Windows platform have heavily managed to ruin the interest of producing games for the windows platform and also ruined the interest in Vista. Games always pushed the PC market before XBox.

I disagree with that. The market that is currently taken by the Xbox would be occupied by another company if Microsoft wouldn't have taken it. Maybe Nintendo or Sony would be bigger than they are now. Or maybe Sega would still be around (as a console manufacturer). No one knows. But someone would be in Microsoft's place for sure if they wouldn't have taken that place.
However, for the PC, I believe it's much better that MS owns that piece of the market than some other company because Xbox games can relatively easily be ported to the PC while Nintendo and Sony games require a little more effort (and thus cost). If Nintendo or Sony and/or any 3rd party other than MS would dominate the console market then there's a good chance that the PC would be doing even worse if the porting would be more difficult.
It's not Microsoft's fault that people generally seem to enjoy console gaming from their living room couches more than PC gaming. It's just the way that the market has swayed in recent years as gaming has become more mainstream.

Originally Posted by Squeek
That's so unethical that it's actually against the law where I live, in California. But good luck getting that law enforced when it comes to software. It's just too complex. So software companies have their own brand of ethics.

I'm not at all surprised that its customers have become increasingly unethical.

I very much agree on this one. Some people might see it as a justification for piracy, but it think it is a valid point. Quality sells, tell me what you want. At least it helps to sell stuff. I would really like to see that gaming magazines emphasise more in reviews if a game is bug free.
But I think there is also another point that is important - not only the technical quality of games on the pc seems to decline, but also the overall quality. Maybe it is only my personal impression, but I have the feeling that there are just less games worth buying nowadays. The last game I bought was NWN2 because I knew I would have fun with it for a loooong time thanks to the included toolset. Unfortunately many games nowadays are mere fastfood. They are either very short, full of bugs, or they are just an uninspired reincarnation of another game. If i buy a game nowadays, I buy a standard EU DVD jewelcase that contains one or two DVDs, and if I'm very lucky a thin manual of 10 sites. 5 or 8 years ago, I got a brilliant package, a manual that was as thick as Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and a clothmap. If I want something similar nowadays, I need to buy the collector's edition that costs 30 bucks more. And even then, in most of all cases, you only get a cheap ass poster, some useless ingame pet that noone wants, and a broken plastic miniature (value about 0.5$).

"In 2004, the industry’s economic loss from piracy was estimated at $3 billion"
Impressive number… but how do they know that? Door to survey? "Excuse me, do you pirate warez?" Did they pirate the 3 billion themselves? As it stands there is more proof in God than in this.

"Part of the problem is piracy. Big titles get stolen by cyber thieves, and it hurts revenue. "The market," said Capps, "that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works.""
Then dont make your game require a fucking $600 video card and people might have spare cash to buy it!

"the abandonment of PC development and focus on console games, where piracy is not as prevalent."
Wii=Chiped, 360=Firmware Hack, PS3=Loader being worked on….

"better physical protection for games"
Because StarForce was so well received….

"and a change in consumer attitudes will help combat piracy"
No a change in developer attitudes will help combat piracy, NWN2 would have been worth the money if I didnt have to restart my char twice, Gothic 3 would have been worth it if it didnt give me a headache the very first time i played it, DMoM&M would have been worth the money if I could load it up anymore… Its doesnt feel like I've bought games here, it feels like I've bought potential games that may become games and it makes me less willing to chance buying other might-be-games. I'll do you a deal right here and now Mr. Hollenshead you do your job and finish the goddamn game and I will buy it, until then you cant complain about people not paying you for the work you haven't completed.
/rant

No-one asks or does a study about users having "economic loss" because of using bad software (software that does not work as it should, has lots of bugs etc.) …

Everything is so economized these days ! Even humans are merely called "human resources" !

his "economization" is of course in favour of the industry. No-one does *really* strong security software for home users, because it wouldn't sell. They rather take a possible loss of a user's data as granted, because "he doesn't need strong security" (read : as strong as companies need it).

Last year I was talking with an guy about encryption. In his arrogance, he told me that home users don't need that. Well, maybbe he's right, but what makes me actually angry is the path where this thought-pattern leads to : Home users don't need no strong security, because they don't own anything that deserves it.

Same goes for bnuggy siftware. The home version of norton is - I heard - completely different code than the enterprise version !

So - Norton is willing to sell low-level software to home users because they know they wouldn't sue them - or even if they wanted to, they maybe couldn't because home users just don't have the money for that.

But big, big companies could do this very well ! So, companies like Symantec have to fear big companies they sell software to, because these big companies could very effectively sue them ! So, their Enterprise version is - I expect this - much, much more bug-.free, than a home-user's version …

Same goes for games. Home users just don't sue. And the companies know that.

In my opinion, those of you who think piracy is price or quality related are way off the truth in most cases. I believe most people pirate, simply because they can. End of story.

It's relatively easy and maybe just a little bit exciting to know you are getting something for free while doing something illicit. Stickin' it to the man, baby!

I don't know if the $3B is accurate, nor do I know if those people would actually buy the games if they had to - the argument that people pirate games they wouldn't necessarily otherwise buy holds some merit for me.

…And just proves people pirate because they can. There's no reason to pirate a game you aren't even really all that interested in other than you can. Can't afford it (but can afford the Geforce 8800 to run it), quality isn't good enough (but yet it's good enough to spend your time playing it) are all bullshit justifications.

Sure, the industry could reduce piracy a little with simultaneous worldwide releases (which is an issue) better quality, accessibility in some countries and so on but that's just around the fringes.

Law-abiding people are so cute when they try to explain criminal behaviour. Not directed to you in particular, Dhruin.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
In my opinion, those of you who think piracy is price or quality related are way off the truth in most cases. I believe most people pirate, simply because they can.

I don't. Not many people have more money than they know how to spend. Piracy allows the rest of the population to divert some of their finite entertainment dollars elsewhere. I mean, pirates are clearly videogame fans. They've invested in the hobby, and if they had no alternative they'd buy a subset of the games they currently steal. As it is, Jemy's friends can buy the hardware, steal the software, and still afford, you know, whatever else the kids are spending their money on these days.

Edit: Make that illegal rather than criminal. I don't think the sort of piracy we're discussing is a criminal offense in any country.
Edit Edit: Actually not. Apparently, and this is not a subject of interest, end-user piracy is covered by the same copyright infringement laws as commercial IP crime, but is typically only pursued through civil courts. Fascinating stuff.

— Statues wouldn't be better if they could move. Model airplanes would not be better if they were the same size as airplanes.

Originally Posted by abbaon
Edit: Make that illegal rather than criminal. I don't think the sort of piracy we're discussing is a criminal offense in any country.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by this but in Germany you'll usually be dragged to court twice. Once to a criminal court where you will probably get away with a small fine if you are a first time offender and then a second time to a civil court if the publisher of the games you pirated decides to sue you. Depending on the number of games you pirated, this [the civil thing] can get very expensive. Not crazy expensive but you'll most likely be out of a few thousand Euro if you have a "respectable" collection of isos.
The only way to escape a trial is if the offender is under the age of 13 or if the amount of pirated games is completely negligible.

Also, I think that Dhruin and you are both right. The "just because they can" argument does kind of include every single other argument that you can think of in regards to why people pirate games. Most people who pirate on a regular basis probably don't really think about it consciously anymore. It might have started out with being short on money and then it turned into a habit. Those people will habitually visit their favorite warez site on a regular basis and just download whatever interests them. They are no longer consciously applying a thought process like "Hmmm… shit, I got $50 for the rest of the month. I can't buy that game. Let's see if I can find a free copy." - No, instead pirating has become like visiting their favorite porn or news site to them. They just check if there's something new and cool to be downloaded so effectively they pirate games just because they can.
Typical male hunter and gatherer behavior. It's been a successful concept for over 100K years and some people obviously have more difficulty to adapt to civilization than others… *burp* .

Originally Posted by BurlyBill
Would this really be so bad? My computer components are generally better made than those found in the 360 and if something breaks, I can swap out rather than deal with an integrated mess.

Yeah but for game dev its a nightmare because if the new component is not exactly the same as the old one then theres a chance that the game will have issues with it. Its much easier to dev for consoles because you dont have to worry about the burden of hardware compability.

The really neat new thing about DX10 (apart from the new shiny) is that it forces - by gunpoint - graphics cards to apply a much more stricter set of rules than DX9. This will greatly lessen the compability burden for the part of the graphics cards because all dx10 cards work much more the sameway than dx9 ones. In future it will mean less bugs and faster development for PC games.

fans are not equal to supporters.
in fact fans are often the antithesis of supporters as their fanatacism doesn't lead to sound decision making. plenty of the best/fashionablely creative dressed teens theive a good majority of their wardrobe. maybe the reason why older people pirate games is different and could partially have to do with the other reasons but the people downloading the games are a majority of people under 25 who like all youngsters must have some level of rebellion and downloading things of the internet whether music, games, or movies gives them a lot with rarely any consequences.

even if piracy is driving my game prices up and the games are riddled with more protection software, and i must suffer through a splash of consolitis i still will feel at ease and that the pc world loves me when compared to when i have to take my car to the gas station and proceed as follows: drop my pants, empty my wallet, and watch the blue disappear from the sky…

Originally Posted by Moriendor
Most people who pirate on a regular basis probably don't really think about it consciously anymore. It might have started out with being short on money and then it turned into a habit. Those people will habitually visit their favorite warez site on a regular basis and just download whatever interests them. They are no longer consciously applying a thought process like "Hmmm… shit, I got $50 for the rest of the month. I can't buy that game. Let's see if I can find a free copy." - No, instead pirating has become like visiting their favorite porn or news site to them. They just check if there's something new and cool to be downloaded so effectively they pirate games just because they can.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
I disagree with that. The market that is currently taken by the Xbox would be occupied by another company if Microsoft wouldn't have taken it. Maybe Nintendo or Sony would be bigger than they are now. Or maybe Sega would still be around (as a console manufacturer). No one knows. But someone would be in Microsoft's place for sure if they wouldn't have taken that place.

I have seen this argument many times, but I think that it's totally false. Both Nintentdo and Sony have shown utter cluelessness when it comes to online play, something that has separated the X-Box and X-Box 360 from their competitors. The Gamecube, PS2, PS3, and Wii never have and never will invite lots of PC developers. Most developers that are shitting on the PC aren't putting their games on every platform. They are putting them just on the X-Box or X-Box 360 (e.g. Bungie, Ion Storm, Funcom, Ascaron, Bioware). To make a long story short, consoles never were in danger of intruding on the PC market before the X-Box came along, and they never would have been. PC gaming is basically nonexistent in Japan, so you would have never seen a PC-like console come from Japan, and very few Western companies (if any) could have made it work besides Microsoft.

PC gaming thrived through numerous generations of consoles before this one. The original NES and the Playstation 1 had far greater installed base than the X-Box or X-Box 360, but you never saw PC developers jumping en masse onto those platforms. Console gaming has always been far more mainstream and popular than PC gaming. There's absolutely nothing new about this. What's new is that now there's a major company encouraging developers to abandon it. And that's Microsoft.

Piracy may be a problem, but the numbers given by the industry are illusory. You can't take the numbers of pirated copies, slap the retail price on it and claim that that's the loss you are suffering. At best you could take the sales volume at market prices for pirated copies for hardcopied console and PC DVD's and the value of internet time and DVD-R's for internet piracy. I mean when I was a teenager and pirated, I copied 300 games from my friends. Of these I played only maybe 30 any significant amount of time. My allowance would have allowed to buy maybe 3. So what was the loss to the industry: 300 x $50, 30 x $50 or 3 x $50? Or no loss at all, because playing these games hooked me to PC games, of which I have now bought roughly 100 x $50?

I am extremely anti-piracy in all areas, but that doesn't mean I support the companies either! I think that in all of the industries (game, music, software) they inflate these huge numbers to make it scary, then go after a few little guys to make it seem that no one is safe.

In terms of support for Dhruin's 'because they can', here is a great example: for my older son's 6th birthday (4 years ago now), he got a CD-R with the PC game "Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone". I really didn't appreciate that to begin with, and spoke to my son and the father of the boy who gave it. He pretty much said "I don't buy any games for the kids, just download them" … and apparently spread the joy. Here is a guy making a very solid living with money to spend on what he wants, pirating all of this stuff - and he taught his son well, as that same year the son crashed the family computer with viruses, etc from all the stuff that *he* was downloading (their kids have almost no limits, that is a tale for a different thread).

Originally Posted by Dhruin
In my opinion, those of you who think piracy is price or quality related are way off the truth in most cases. I believe most people pirate, simply because they can. End of story.

Okay. I just take this argument and turn it the other way round :

I buy games in shops, because I can. End of story.

Am I too lazy to actually crack a game or "patch" it so that it runs without copy protection ?

There is something deep in me that tells me that it is dishonest towards developers working so long for a game with which they want to earn some money and appeal to people.

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz
PC gaming thrived through numerous generations of consoles before this one.

"Jein", as we say in German (it's a mixture between "Ja" and "Nein",effectuively meaning a miuxture between "Yes" and "No").

At the same time as numerous consoles were marching past the PCs, numerousd PC operating systems actually did the same. And with the operating systems the ways of programming games changed.
Without emulators, you often can't run DOS games nowadays anymore on PCs … and they are still PCs, although their hardware has evolved, too …

Hm, I don't know about you, but in my country a brand newly released game costs around 1/10 of my salary. Considering that half of my salary goes to electricity and such, I have to eat too, I really can't afford to buy more than 1 game in a month and even that seems much. And the average salary is around mine or even less.
So piracy here is purely economical. Eat or Buy Original Games.
I tend to wait for budget verisons or at least a bit cheaper price which in most cases means a year. Sometimes I could buy these games much cheaper from UK VG shops, but it almost the same amount considering postage.
And don't forgate those games which aren't even released here. Or Oh Goddamnit, translated to Hungarian! Cheap, horrible translations. (Playing Fall: Last days of Gaia, loving it but climbing on wall because of the translation)

Piracy is theft, plain and simple. However most games published today would not qualify as “fit for purpose” under any reasonable trade description legislation. In selling shoddy, bug-ridden, “unfit for purpose” merchandise the games industry is committing larceny on a grand scale.

Ironically, in their greed, publishers actually encourage piracy by penalising legitimate users with blocking and performance degrading copy-protection software. Is there any other industry where the pirate version of a product is actually better than the original?